Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
The new political divide pits conservatives against liberals and populists
The new political divide pits conservatives against liberals and populists
Jan 15, 2026 3:12 AM

The election of 2016 highlighted how politically divided we are as a nation. But the dividing line may not be where we had assumed.

For the past few decades the electorate has been viewed as divided almost equally between social and economic conservatives and social and economic liberals. But a recent study of voting patterns in the 2016 election reveals the old left-right divide is fractured and voters are clustered into four main groups.

The first group prised of Liberals, who are liberal on both economic and identity issues. At 44.6 percent, prise the largest voting demographic.

The second group is made up of Populists, people who are liberal on economic issues and conservative on identity issues. They are 28.9 percent of the population.

The third group is Conservatives, those who are conservative on both economic and identity issues. They are not only much smaller than the Liberals but even smaller than the Populists, making up only 22.7 percent of voters.

Finally, there are the Libertarians, who are conservative on economic issues and liberal on identity issues. prise a mere 3.8 percent of voters.

This scatterplot below shows how these groups aligned in the 2016 electorate.

Not surprisingly, Clinton voters are consistently liberal on both economic and identity issues. But notice that Trump voters are less conservative on identity issues than Clinton voters are liberal. And while Trump voters are clustered around the center-right on economic issues, few are strongly conservative on economics—and many are economically liberal.

Clinton won the majority of Liberals, while Trump won almost all of the Conservatives. But Trump also won 6.3 percent of the Liberal vote and gained the edge in winning over the Populists. Trump beat Clinton by about a 3-to-1 margin among the populists. Clinton won only 5.7 percent of the Populist vote, barely beating out the 4.3 percent of populists who supported third party candidates.

(Libertarians split almost equally between Clinton, Trump, and third party candidates like Johnson, proving that Liberaltarians do exist.)

So how did Trump win? As the report notes, largely by winning over the Populists—liberal on economic issues, conservative on identity issues—who had previously voted for Obama (about 8 percent of Populists had voted for Obama in 2012) or who had supported neither Obama nor Romney in 2012.

He also resonated with those who supported economically liberal positions—which now is the majority of the Republican party. If we look at primary voters, we find that Republicans—even Ted Cruz voters—were to the left of Clinton voters on attitudes about foreign trade. Trump voters were also to the left of every candidate but Kasich on economic inequality.

What does this portend for the GOP? As the report notes,

Republicans are about equally divided between economically liberal populists and more free-market-oriented conservatives. Republican primaries revealed a Kasich faction that is consistently more moderate across issues, a Trump faction that is more liberal on economic issues but more conservative on identity issues, and a Cruz faction that is more free market on economic issues and particularly conservative on moral issues.

[…]

Since Republicans have picked up more economically liberal voters (and may continue to do so since there are still some populists who vote for Democrats), it may be harder for Republicans to continue to push a traditional conservative free-market agenda.

As these results show, free market advocates pletely e in the Democratic Party and increasingly ing a minority within the GOP. If we don’t find a way to shift the tide soon we advocates of economic freedom may find ourselves caught between Populist and Liberals as they fight about what sort of socialism we’ll be forced to accept.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Government Fees That Perpetuate Poverty
The Atlantic magazine published an article on July 5, 2016 highlighting the growing problems in Louisiana with legal financial obligations (LFOs) and their effect on poor defendants and the recently incarcerated. Former prisoners usually have a hard time finding a stable e post incarceration and LFOs often require former prisoners to pay thousands of dollars upon release. The average amount in the state of Washington is $1,347, with interest rates that make the debt increase over time. One woman the...
Why Churches Should Be Tax Exempt
Churches and other religious institutions in American are almost always exempt from federal, state, and local taxes. The justification for this policy is usually that such institutions provide vital charitable benefits to society. While that is undoubtably true the benefits argument is not the strongest reason to support tax exemption. A better reason is that we need to maintain a distinction between the state and the church. As Richard W. Garnett and Paul J. Schierl explain, the separation of church...
How Kentucky Schools Are Rejecting the ‘College Readiness’ Cookie Cutter
Fueled by a mix of misguided cultural pressures and misaligned government incentives, college tuition has been rising for decades, outpacing general inflation by a wide margin. Yet despite the underlying problems, our politicians seem increasingly inclined to cement the status quo. Whether it beincreasedsubsidies for student loans or promises of“free college” for all, such solutions simply double down on our failedcookie-cutter approach to education and vocation, narrowing rather than expanding the range of opportunities and possibilities. Fortunately, despite such aninept...
Weak rule of law in administrative state threatens freedom
People often criticize the vast size and scope of the bureaucracy in the United States, but there is another critical issue involving the administrative state that is seldom discussed: the breakdown of the rule of law. The procedural rights that are necessary for a strong rule of law and are so often taken for granted are not guaranteed in the administrative state today. Strong rule of law is one of the necessary elements for a free and virtuous society, and...
The School Suspension Quagmire
The harsh discipline policies at schools across the nation are now under close scrutiny. Last week, Secretary of Education John King criticized the ‘zero-tolerance’ discipline policies of many charter schools across the country. King claimed that plicated issues surrounding school discipline were being oversimplified into a binary process at many charter schools that led to a higher number of suspensions. This is a problem that exists across public, private, and charter schools around the country: students are suspended and expelled...
How to Pray for the Police
They swore to protect and serve. Now they lie dead and wounded. Last night five law enforcement officers in Dallas were killed and six more were wounded. They need our prayers, as do all the men and women who dedicate their lives to keeping us safe on our streets and in our homes. Here are eight ways we can pray for the police in America . . . Continue reading. ...
Stewarding Retirement: Why a Christian’s Work Never Ends
As Christians in the modern economy, we face a constant temptation to limit our work and stewardship to the temporal and the material, focusing only on “putting in our 40,” working for the next paycheck, and tucking away enough cash for a cozy retirement. Such priorities have led many to absorbthe most consumeristicfeatures of the so-called “American Dream,” approaching work only as a means for retirement, and retirement only as a “dead space” for recreation and leisure. Yet as retiree...
Unemployment as Economic-Spiritual Indicator — June 2016 Report
Series Note: Jobs are one of the most important aspects of a morally functioning economy. They help us serve the needs of our neighbors and lead to human flourishing both for the individual and munities. Conversely, not having a job can adversely affect spiritual and psychological well-being of individuals and families. Because unemployment is a spiritual problem, Christians in America need to understand and be aware of the monthly data on employment. Each month highlight the latest numbers we need...
Don Quixote, Pioneer of Religious Freedom
The Spanish novelist Cervantes wrote his famous tale about a knight-errant almost 200 years before the the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was adopted. But as Eric C. Graf, Professor of Literature at Universidad Francisco Marroquín, explains, Don Quixote paved the way for freedom of religious conscience by championing the freedom to think or believe what you want in your head. ...
God and Man in the Age of Trump
If a classic, as Mark Twain claimed, is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read, then William F. Buckley, Jr.’s God and Man at Yale is the epitome of a conservative classic. Few who have read it (and they are indeed few) would dispute its importance to the founding of modern conservatism. As the historian George Nash said, God and Man was “probably the most controversial book in the history of conservatism since 1945 and...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved